In the years since the third edition of this indispensable reference was published, a great deal has been learned about the nutritional requirements of common laboratory species: rat, mouse, guinea pig, hamster, gerbil, and vole. The Fourth Revised Edition presents the current expert understanding of the lipid, carbohydrate, protein, mineral, vitamin, and other nutritional needs of these animals. The extensive use of tables provides easy access to a wealth of comprehensive data and resource information. The volume also provides an expanded background discussion of general dietary considerations. In addition to a more user-friendly organization, new features in this edition include: A significantly expanded section on dietary requirements for rats, reporting substantial new findings. A new section on nutrients that are not required but that may produce beneficial results. New information on growth and reproductive performance among the most commonly used strains of rats and mice and on several hamster species. An expanded discussion of diet formulation and preparationâ€"including sample diets of both purified and natural ingredients. New information on mineral deficiency and toxicity, including warning signs. This authoritative resource will be important to researchers, laboratory technicians, and manufacturers of laboratory animal feed.

The Laboratory Rat, Volume I: Biology and Diseases focuses on the use of rats in specific areas of research, ranging from dental research to toxicology. The first part of this book retraces the biomedical history of early events and personalities involved in the establishment of rats as a leading laboratory animal. The taxonomy, genetics and inbred strains of rats are also elaborated. The next chapters illustrate the hematology, clinical biochemistry, and anatomical and physiological features of the laboratory rat. This text concludes with a description of infectious diseases that may be contracted from laboratory and/or wild rats. This volume is a good source for commercial and institutional organizations involved in producing rats for research use, specialists in laboratory animal, animal care and research technicians, as well as students in graduate and professional curricula.

Representing the latest knowledge of the ecology and the physiology of cold-adapted microorganisms, plants and animals, this book explains the mechanisms of cold-adaptation on the enzymatic and molecular level, including results from the first crystal structures of enzymes of cold-adapted organisms.

Ecotoxicology is a relatively new scientific discipline. Indeed, it might be argued that it is only during the last 5-10 years that it has come to merit being regarded as a true science, rather than a collection of procedures for protecting the environment through management and monitoring of pollutant discharges into the environment. The term 'ecotoxicology' was first coined in the late sixties by Prof. Truhaut, a toxicologist who had the vision to recognize the importance of investigating the fate and effects of chemicals in ecosystems. At that time, ecotoxicology was considered a sub-discipline of medical toxicology. Subsequently, several attempts have been made to portray ecotoxicology in a more realistic light. Notably, both F. Moriarty (1988) and F. Ramade (1987) emphasized in their books the broad basis of ecotoxicology, encompassing chemical and radiation effects on all components of ecosystems. In doing so, they and others have shifted concern from direct chemical toxicity to man, to the far more subtle effects that pollutant chemicals exert on natural biota. Such effects potentially threaten the existence of all life on Earth. Although I have identified the sixties as the era when ecotoxicology was first conceived as a coherent subject area, it is important to acknowledge that studies that would now be regarded as ecotoxicological are much older. Wherever people's ingenuity has led them to change the face of nature significantly, it has not escaped them that a number of biological con sequences, often unfavourable, ensue.

The brain is the most complex organ in our body. Indeed, it is perhaps the most complex structure we have ever encountered in nature. Both structurally and functionally, there are many peculiarities that differentiate the brain from all other organs. The brain is our connection to the world around us and by governing nervous system and higher function, any disturbance induces severe neurological and psychiatric disorders that can have a devastating effect on quality of life. Our understanding of the physiology and biochemistry of the brain has improved dramatically in the last two decades. In particular, the critical role of cations, including magnesium, has become evident, even if incompletely understood at a mechanistic level. The exact role and regulation of magnesium, in particular, remains elusive, largely because intracellular levels are so difficult to routinely quantify. Nonetheless, the importance of magnesium to normal central nervous system activity is self-evident given the complicated homeostatic mechanisms that maintain the concentration of this cation within strict limits essential for normal physiology and metabolism. There is also considerable accumulating evidence to suggest alterations to some brain functions in both normal and pathological conditions may be linked to alterations in local magnesium concentration. This book, containing chapters written by some of the foremost experts in the field of magnesium research, brings together the latest in experimental and clinical magnesium research as it relates to the central nervous system. It offers a complete and updated view of magnesiums involvement in central nervous system function and in so doing, brings together two main pillars of contemporary neuroscience research, namely providing an explanation for the molecular mechanisms involved in brain function, and emphasizing the connections between the molecular changes and behavior. It is the untiring efforts of those magnesium researchers who have dedicated their lives to unraveling the mysteries of magnesiums role in biological systems that has inspired the collation of this volume of work.

Cardiac cell biology has come of age. Recognition of activated or modified signaling molecules by specific antibodies, new selective inhibitors, and fluorescent fusion tags are but a few of the tools used to dissect signaling pathways and cross-talk mechanisms that may eventually allow rational drug design. Understanding the regulation of cardiac hypertrophy in all its complexity remains a fundamental goal of cardiac research. Since the advancement of adenovirally mediated gene transfer, transfection efficiency is no longer a limiting factor in the study of cardiomyocytes. A limiting factor in considering cell transplantion as a strategy to repair the damaged heart is cell availability at the right time. Cardiac gap junctions, intercellular communication channels that allow electrical and metabolic coupling and play an important role in arrhythmogenesis are now understood to be exquisite sensors of cardiac change. The reports in this volume incLude elegant studies that made use of cutting edge technological advances and many specialized reagents to address these issues.

After the appearance of the four-book series Human Nutrition: A Compre hensive Treatise, it became apparent to the editors that an important area of nutrition had been overlooked, namely, behavioral aspects of nutrition. There are two areas in which nutrition and behavior interact. On the one hand, mal nutrition may play a major role in determining behavior; alternatively, often aspects of behavior influence the eating habits of populations and individuals and thus affect their nutritional status. Volume 5 of this series speaks eloquently to both features of this important topic. Various aspects of the influence of behavior modification and nutrition have been explored by a number of qualified investigators. It is hoped that this volume will prove a valuable addition to the subjects covered in the other volumes. Roslyn B. Alfin-Slater David Kritchevsky Los Angeles and Philadelphia ix Contents Introduction: The Challenge of Nutrition and Environment as Determinants of Behavioral Development .................... . Janina R. Galler References ............................................. 5 Part I • Nutritional Deficiencies or Excesses Modifying Behavioral Outcome Chapter 1 Methological Requirements for Conceptually Valid Research Studies on the Behavioral Effects of Malnutrition David E. Barrett 1. Introduction ......................................... 9 2. Statistical-Conclusion Validity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 . . . . . . . 3. Internal Validity ...................................... 14 4. External Validity ..................................... 16 5. Construct Validity of Putative Causes and Effects . . . . . . . . .. . . . 19 6. Conclusions and Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 28 . . . .

Iron deficiency in infancy is very widespread, even in developed countries and even when there is no general malnutrition. This book examines the question whether iron deficiency in early life leads to deleterious changes in brain and/or behavioural development. Each of the nine contributors comments critically on each of the other eight chapters, so that the book is very extensively peer-reviewed. The evidence is set out so that the reader may make his own informed judgement. Iron deficiency could very easily be prevented; this fact is of prime importance if such deficiency has long-lasting effects on human intellectual capacity and achievement.